A white-eyed vireo is hiding in a Big River thicket

MENDOCINO CO., 9/13/26 — A small gray-green bird with white eyes has been living since Aug. 31 in a thicket beside the creek at the mouth of Big River, singing a song that belongs about 1,500 miles east of here.

It’s a white-eyed vireo, a bird of thickets and wetlands from Texas to New England. Marty Freeland found it that morning near the Big River parking area in Mendocino Headlands State Park. The Mendocino Coast Audubon Society’s August sightings report says it appears to be only the second county record of the species. Another birder logged it in the same brush Friday afternoon.